A GADGET designed by a young inventor to help a shopper hold multiple shopping bags is on the verge of being licensed internationally.

The Yoke Shopper, the idea of an inventor from St Asaph has already been launched on several websites and through kitchen retailer Lakeland.

Now creator Matt Davies is planning to launch the product – which has a retail value of £12.99 – worldwide and secure distributors in every country in Europe.

The company has already appointed distributors in the UK, Holland, France and Turkey and is being showcased at shows in Geneva and Barcelona.

Mr Davies, 35, who still owns all of his company, has already sold 5,000 units since he launched it last year and hopes to sell in excess of 200,000 in the next year.

With the fledgling company already operating at a turnover of around £30,000 with a resulting profit of 40% for the first six months of the year, its creator aims to quadruple turnover in the coming year.

Although designed with plastic bags in mind, Mr Davies says that the Yoke Shopper is designed to hold any bag with a narrow handle which might cut into a shopper’s hands – bringing it into the “bag for life” market that is likely to grow if WAG brings in an expected “plastic bag tax.”

The Welsh Assembly announced in November that shoppers must pay a charge of up to 15p for a throwaway plastic bag with the laws in force in time for Christmas or May 2011.

Mr Davies said: “It has been designed to take any bag, including any ‘bags for life’, hessian bags and anything else that you might come up for it, if it has a narrow handle.

“I think the bag tax or any other measure to try and reduce our use of plastic bags is a great thing and I had that in mind when I conceived the product.”

The gadget has already been granted European, American and worldwide patents, but Mr Davies admits that with product success, he will have to accept that some foreign copycats might emerge.

“I hope to be in the position where people might want to copy the product, it’s flattering in a way as these people don’t speculate on products that might become big, they see a big, successful product and copy it, so by that point I’d be big enough to be copied without losing out massively,” he said.

Mr Davies also plans offshoots of the main product to make it appealing for major retailers, including different-branded Yokes, accessories and even bar codes that the retailers could use for their own products.

He said: “The beauty of the product is that you can change and customise every part of it. If you wanted a version that had every colour of the rainbow or with green and yellow buttons, it is easily done.

“One idea I’ve had is to introduce barcodes on to the strap so that big retailers and supermarkets can scan it through for their points cards or clubcards, meaning that customers won’t need cards.

“I’m in conversations with big retailers, but there I realise that the company is still growing and I need to prove that it is a growing, popular market that is deserving of the supermarket shelf space.

“It may be better that way – I’d rather become more established than go to one of these massive retailers and end up with the product being stuck between two tins of cat food in a forgotten aisle and it ending up being seen as a failure. I’d rather wait until when the ball is not completely in their court.”

Mr Davies successfully applied for funding from the Welsh Innovation Network (WIN) the innovation arm of the Welsh Assembly Government, something he credits as “invaluable” in starting the company up.

He said: “They helped me every step of the way and were phenomenally instrumental in helping me get the idea off the ground.”